40
Going up into the attic they found nothing at first. Her parents were dealing with their own issues. Her mom was afraid of heights and closed-in spaces so she didn’t want to go inside the attic.
I figured if you knew your daughter was up there or something was wrong you would put all that aside, but I guess phobias are real. The father… when he had his mind screwed on straight enough to give an iota of a thought or care, asked his friend for assistance.
He and his friend went up there and found Jessica.
The weird part about it is… I expected her wrist to be slit.
But no.
Jessica had hung herself from a low beam using a thick dog leash.
The beam wasn’t even high. All she would’ve had to do was stand up to loosen the pressure.
The fact that she stayed on her knees, using her own body weight to choke herself, refusing every survival instinct screaming at her to breathe…
that meant she had made a deliberate, unbreakable decision to go.
She mustered the willpower to push past every survival prompt her body must’ve been giving her.
When I heard the news I cried. It had been four weeks before they realized that Jessica had been rotting up there in the attic… in the dust… in the dark.
When I told my mother about this, since my father was away at the time, her only response to me was, “I told you not to hang out with that girl. This is the reason why.”
There was no “I’m so sorry baby. I’m so sorry that happened to your friend.” There was no “God save her soul.”
None of that.
Just my mom’s constant lectures about “See what happens when you mess with the Devil?”
The thing is, when I was growing up I don’t remember my mom being like this. Somewhere along the line, I don’t know, she started to change too. Same thing with the church people. Not saying all of them are like that. Some are very nice and prayed for me.
Around that time I was starting to question my belief in God anyway.
I didn’t agree with the scripture anymore.
I started reading it trying to find comfort, my tears falling onto the pages as I mourned Jessica.
Our group of friends just existed. Most of them got high and drunk all the time.
I didn’t even realize at the time but Jessica was kind of that little glue that held everyone together.
A year after that, Tommy, one of the guys in our group, shot himself. His dad was a drug runner and had illegal firearms under the mattress of Tommy’s bed. Shit was fucked.
Then we moved away from that neighborhood.
How could a God who claimed to love his children just let Jessica go out like that?
Why would He punish people for not believing or worshiping in exactly the “right” way when no one could even agree on what that way was supposed to be?
Why did the Bible command women to fully submit to men, and to not have them teach men anything or to remain silent in church and if they had questions, they needed to ask their husbands?
And why did God make rape okay; as long as the dude married the virgin he raped?
And if that was the Old Testament, why even keep that shit in there in the first place? What could we possibly learn from that?
That God used to be sexist and now Jesus ‘changed His mind? It was all fucked.
As much as I tried to hang on to my faith and I begged God to help me understand, it just faded.
I just didn’t believe anymore. And I wanted to.
Especially for Jessica’s sake, because as bad as things were for her she still believed in God.
And she went out like that and nobody stopped or saved her.
On one of those nights I asked my mom if Jessica was at peace in heaven. I don’t know why I asked her that, but my mom straight up told me, “No. She took her life. People who commit suicide have no place in the Kingdom of Heaven. For God said not to murder and suicide is murder.”
But I argued with my mom at the time that suicide is called suicide. Murder is when one person kills another person. But if you’re killing yourself, you’re not killing another person. Hence why it’s called suicide and not murder.
She told me if that were the case and it was not unlawful then many people would be doing it to get themselves into heaven. Then other Christians told me something completely different.
I wanted to believe that Jessica was at peace. That everything that she went through had meaning. But as I grew older I realized that… whatever is up there, it doesn’t care. Our life is what we make of it. It rains on the just and the unjust no matter how hard we pray or don’t.
That’s why evil people prosper. That’s why good people suffer. That’s why the worst people imaginable rise to power, and why the most humble and meek of people like Jessica are completely powerless.
Someone can claim that they are religious but if they don’t put in the work to go after what they want they will never get anywhere in life. God doesn’t hand anyone anything unless they work for it. How convenient.
And even through the struggle and the prayer and the fasting, even my own to help Jessica feel better and to get out of her situation… my prayers went unanswered. My fasting went unfulfilled.
My singing and my dancing and my ultimate praise when I was wailing out to him, crying to save my other friends in our group that weren’t familiar with the gospel even after I told them about it… it was all for nothing. It felt like someone just laughed in my face for wasting my time.
I had even just been talking to Tommy two weeks before he killed himself. He was interested in reading the Bible. He said he wasn’t ready to accept Jesus yet and that he wanted to know more about the religion.
I promised him that we would. Between school and home life, it got busy. But I still was waiting for him, happy that he was giving it a chance, only to find out that the boy up and took himself out.
Whether he meant to do it or he was just playing around with his dad’s gun, nobody knows. But God didn’t save him. And I would gather that he didn’t have a chance to give his life to Jesus.
I don’t have any hostility toward God, because I don’t believe in Him. But it still annoys me when I see people destroying themselves for what I see as nothing more than a figment of their imagination.
But part of me gets it. As stupid as it is. That was all Jessica had to hold on to. And that seems to be all that King has to hold on to.
Maybe they were never shown there’s more to reach for outside of faith. Maybe they don’t know any better. Or maybe they were just brainwashed. I don’t know.
But right now, as King carries me to the bed and gently lays me down, his mouth moving over my lips, my neck, my shoulders, the only clear thought in my head is that I need to make him stop. His faith is everything to him.
It’s woven into who he is. I don’t want to be the one who rips that away from him. What if I do, and he ends up like Jessica?
“King,” I whisper, but he silences me, capturing my mouth in another deep, hungry kiss.
Something moves between us and feeling the weight of King’s body on top of mine makes me yearn for the feeling of his dick inside of me.
What is he doing?
At first I believe he’s reaching between us to slip his fingers inside of me.
I’m wearing tight black spandex shorts, like yoga shorts, and a big t-shirt.
You wouldn’t have to reach very far. He could just slide his hand in under the leg of my shorts, slip around my panties and he would be there, able to feel every wet drop I’m making for him.
Then I hear the clinking noise that’s unmistakably his belt.
Oh my God. Wait, what is he doing?
He definitely is unbuckling his belt, which makes my heart beat even faster than it already was. I let out a short gasp of pleasure at the eagerness to feel him. Is he really going to do this?
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he whimpers against my mouth, his entire body shivering with restraint before he keeps going. He shoves the waistband of his pants and unbuckled belt down past his ass.
Wrapping my legs around him again and locking my ankles together, I can feel his bare ass on my heels. We’re about to fuck. King is about to fuck me.
This is what I want. I want this more than anything. Holy shit I’ve never wanted to fuck a guy as much as I want to fuck King. I mean my ex, yes I loved him too and I had that feeling, but it’s like a distant memory. King is all my mind sees right now and all my body wants.
But he’s right. He shouldn’t be doing this. Knowing now how I feel about him I no longer want to corrupt him. That small part of me that was still hanging on that wanted to be evil and show him what he was missing… I don’t want to do that to him.
“King don’t,” I barely get the words out, not really meaning them. “King,” I whisper again as he sucks my neck, moaning into my skin, his warm fingers struggling to peel away the crotch of my shorts so he can put himself inside.
He’s breathing so fast, almost hyperventilating in his eagerness and excitement.
“King… I don’t want you to sin.”
He kisses my neck hungrily, then crashes his mouth back against mine.
“You don’t mean that,” he breathes against my lips, his voice shaky. The man sounds desperate like he’s barely hanging on by a thread. “Y-you’re always lying.”
Two of his fingers slide inside me, probably checking how wet I am so he can aim true.
“King, don’t,” I whisper, trying to summon whatever willpower I have left to stop him before he makes a mistake he’ll regret.
But he doesn’t stop. He shifts his hips, maneuvering the head of his cock toward my crotch. The thick tip presses firmly against the crotch of my shorts before he pushes the fabric aside even more with his other hand, pulling my panties to the side. He lines himself up, ready to push inside.
I can't let him do this.
I want him to so bad.
The sounds that he makes—God, how I want him so bad. He's literally right there about to push in.
Wanting to do the same to myself, I slap him hard in the face, causing his eyes to snap open and his head to lift slightly off of me, stopping him from kissing me.
When his pretty gray eyes focus on mine, I tell him softly but firmly, “No. I'm not going to let you sin. I… I know what your faith means to you so… get off me.” I manage to grunt through my own passionate exhales, trying to catch my breath.
Blinking fast, seeming confused or out of the trance, King gets off me.
Fighting like hell, I waste no time and take him by the hand. His pants are still hanging down past his ass, his beautiful big red cock sticking out straight in front of him, pulsing and bouncing and ready.
I could have sworn I saw a little drip coming from it. Poor King. But I've made up my mind.
“Wait,” he starts to say, still breathing hard, his lips still red from the both of us kissing. He uses his right hand to pull up his pants barely as I drag him by his other hand, walking out in front of him and pulling him behind me straight for the apartment door.
Opening it, I pull him forward to me and then lead him, basically directing him to go out into the hallway.
“Don’t come back,” I tell him sternly.
Before I can close the door, he puts his hand on the frame of it, holding his pants up.
“Why—why are you pushing me away? I thought you cared for me,” he says, looking genuinely confused and almost as heartbroken as I do.
My tears start to flow. My voice cracks. “I do. That’s why I am,” I tell him, just on the edge of a sob, slamming the door in his face.
It seems as though he stands there for a minute, probably adjusting himself. I hear the clink of the belt, then I hear a soft thud near the peephole of the door.
When I look through it, his forehead is pressed to the door, his eyes closed. He looks torn. After a few seconds, he stands up, runs his hands through his hair, and paces very slowly in a circle, wondering if he should leave.
His palm braces against the back of his neck as he rubs his nape. He looks back towards my door one more time and then slowly heads down the stairs, looking as though someone just stole his favorite toy and he knows he can never get it back.
God dammit.
It is very rare when I push a man out of my apartment when we’re about to have sex.
It’s more rare that I push a man out of my apartment when I really care for him and want to have sex with him.
The fact that I’m crying means this has gone too far.
The way that emotions just creep up on you is crazy. I knew better than to fall in love with this man.
My mind ruminates, wondering how I could have avoided it. Staying away from him would have been the sure-fire way, but I just had to play with fire.
Heading to my bedroom and looking at the messy sheets, I sit at the foot of the bed, feeling drained, still horny, and with an aching heart and pussy.
There’s a knock at my door.
My heart lurches in joy.
If King is back, I don’t know if I can reject him again. I don’t think I have the strength to.
When I open it, I see that it’s Xenith.
“Heeey,” she says awkwardly. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” She comes in and hugs me instantly, holding me close to her and swaying with me, not even knowing what’s wrong.
“I saw King leave. Did he do something to you?” she asks, leaning back to look at my face to see if I’m being truthful, to see if I’ll make an excuse for King.
Shaking my head quickly, I wipe my eyes. “I kicked him out.”
“Why? Did you guys have sex?” she asks, and I can tell she has not one clue whether she should be happy or scared for me.
Shaking my head, her eyebrow raises in concern. “Why did you kick him out?”
“Because… I think I’m in love with him,” I tell her, knowing she’s going to want more of an explanation. But she smiles at me lovingly.
“I already knew that, sweetie. Oh, I’m so sorry. Poor thing,” she says, hugging me again as I cry on her shoulder.